Lapeña vows to promote more customs employees

Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña vowed to promote more customs employees in the coming weeks, especially “those who have been in the bureau for many years but were never promoted.”

Bureau of Customs (BOC) Isidro Lapeña (Czar Dancel / MANILA BULLETIN)

“Hindi dapat kayo ‘yung (You should not be) pleading for promotion. It is their duty to promote you when the time has come and of course when you are qualified,” Lapena said before customs employees at the Port of Manila recently.

On June 18, a total of 42 employees from the bureau have been promoted to various positions. Among the newly-promoted personnel, one of them have been working for the bureau for 19 years before getting promoted, according to the commissioner.

Another mass promotion was announced last June 26, where a total of 27 employees have been promoted and took oath for their new posts.

Lapena said the customs employees “will expect more promotions every week.”

It can be recalled that the a total of 513 employees were promoted in October 2017, which was the first mass promotion in the bureau in many years.

Promoting customs employees, according to Lapena, is part of the bureau’s mission to speed up facilitation.

He also stressed in the past that the bureau will prioritize first the promotion of its employees before hiring new ones.

“It should be the qualified employees first to get those positions. And then, we will hire new ones but giving priority to the contractuals, who have been serving the Bureau of Customs,” he said.